The Chaos of the Corruption

 

Challenges for the improvement of the Palestinian Society

 

 

Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat (Reuters).

 

Researched & compiled

 

by

 

Fabio Forgione

 

October 2004

 

 

                                                               

 

                                       

 

Introduction: Palestinian Authority’s establishment

 

On 13^th of September, 1993, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Government of Israel signed the “Declaration on Interim Self-Government Arrangement” at the White House in Washington. The two sides agreed on a framework for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations within the Middle East Peace Process with the aim of establishing a Palestinian Interim Self-Government Authority (the Palestinian National Authority), an elected council (the Palestinian Legislative Council) for the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Such a transitional period was supposed not exceeding five years and leading to a permanent settlement based on United Nations Security Council Resolutions (n.242 of 1967 and n.338 of 1973).

 

The Palestinian National Authority (PNA or PA) is to be considered as a semi-autonomous state institution normally called to govern those areas of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) from which Israeli occupation forces withdraw. Officially, it maintains control over both security-related and civilian issues in Palestinian urban areas (called after Oslo agreements “Area A”), and civilian control over Palestinian rural areas (called after Oslo agreements “Area B”).

 

The Oslo Accords did not explicitly deal with the future of the PA, but an unwritten understanding was reached on both sides: it would become the political, internationally recognized basis of a democratic, independent, and viable Palestinian State in the process of the final settlement.

 

Nowadays, however, the Palestinian Authority continues in enjoining an international recognition as the organization representing the Palestinian people. It has an observer status within United Nations, and receives considerable funds as aids from several international institutions, especially the European Union.

 

Since its establishment in 1993, only one election has taken place. All other subsequent scheduled elections have been deferred for various reasons. The general elections, held in 1996, were supposed to represent the first step in the process of establishment of a democratic Palestinian State. The Legislative Branch and the President of the Executive Authority, which were elected in this general democratic election-process, monitored by international observers, in addition to the Cabinet and the Judicial System, would stand for the solid foundation of the Palestinian State to come. The present Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, was democratically elected in 1996, the 20^th of January.

 

  

I. Palestinian Authority’s internal disease

 

According to numerous international and Palestinian observers, since the inception of the Palestinian Authority, Arafat’s administration has been largely characterized by:

 

• significant lack of democracy in the decision making-process;
• wide-spread corruption and lawlessness among officials and politicians;
• partition of power among a restricted number of families and numerous governmental agencies with overlapping functions;
• utilize of governmental positions for achieving private interests;
• deficiency of a fair and impartial judicial system able to bring the dishonest officials on trial.

 

In accordance with the statistics gathered by the PHRMG, the corruption’s most wide-spread features in the Palestinian society are resulted to be:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The PA has indeed become a hotbed of graft and corruption year after year. Moreover, estimates indicate that hundred of millions of dollars – most from foreign aids and development assistance – have been lost to date due to corrupt governmental practices.

 

In the past, several restructuring efforts have taken place but the changes in the Palestinian Legislative Council have been superficial at best, with ministers accused of impropriety remaining in positions of power, often at the bidding of the chairman himself. Ongoing corruption stems from the current Palestinian law, which provides members of the legislature with immunity from arrest, making them unaccountable to their own government for fraudulent practices. As a result, Islamic groups, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have begun to fill the gap, providing grassroots social services to the Palestinian population and gaining growing support within the Palestinian civil society.

 

As a consequence, since the beginning of the current Intifada Al-Aqsa broken out in 2000, the 28^th of September, an escalating number of Palestinians have massively stopped accepting the Palestinian Authority as a representative of the Palestinian people. The PA is indeed basically considered no longer able to carry out its internal and external obligations.

 

Over the past seven years, the Palestinian Authority has also come under repeated criticism for widespread abuses of human rights, ranging from false imprisonment to torture. Conducted awesomely by the Palestinian Authority’s police forces, these violations outline a broad pattern of governmental repression and authoritarian rule.

  

 

 

II. Disarray sparkled in the OPT: an unprecedented push to gain a voice in Palestinian matters

 

Four years after the beginning of the second Palestinian uprising, the Palestinian Authority gives the perceptible impression to be broken, politically fractured, riddled with corruption, unable to provide security for its own people and seemingly unwilling to crack down on attacks against Israelis.

 

The turmoil erupted within the Palestinian Authority, mainly throughout the Gaza Strip, since July 2004, has been fueling extreme concern that the agency – created with the aim of governing the West Bank the Gaza Strip – is actually disintegrating and could collapse, leaving a political and security vacuum in one of the Middle East’s most volatile regions.

 

The Occupied Palestinians Territories have witnessed in the last months one of the darkest phases of their leadership. A severe internal crisis, seriously threatening their own safety and security, has widely spread in the Territories, particularly in the Gaza Strip, since July 2004. A massive succession of attacks, abductions, illegal activities, violent demonstrations as well as occupation of public buildings has been perpetrated both by individuals and militant groups. Such actions can not represent anything but a complete and worrying deficiency of the rule of law and the anarchy involving the whole Palestinian Authority’s structure, particularly nowadays. On this context, the need of serious and significant reforms for overtaking the cronyism and nepotism existing in the PA since its establishment is strongly required as soon as possible.

 

Anyhow, the chaos erupted throughout the Occupied Palestinians Territories is to be considered as the direct consequence of an attempted reform, proposed by the PA Chairman, Yasser Arafat, of the Palestinian Security Services. The aim of the planned reform was to reduce the Palestinian Security Service branches from eight into three main apparatuses: National Security; Police; General Intelligence Services.

Moussa Arafat, one of the most remarkable expressions of nepotism within PA, according to the Palestinian people. (Reuters).

 

 

 

 

 

Protests broke out against these measures, mostly against the nepotistic appointments of individual belonging to Arafat’s family as chief of the bodies. In particular the appointment of Major–General Moussa Arafat, PA Chairman’s cousin, to the position of Chief of the Palestinian National Security Force, has been seen as a big scandal from the whole Palestinian society, branding him the umpteenth “symbol of PA corruption”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah political movement, called then for a comprehensive campaign against corruption in the Palestinian Authority, recommending that Arafat relinquish some of his powers and militant groups – including Islamic organizations – be granted a formal governing voice. The campaign has resulted as the first formal attempt by an armed resistance group to seek a political role in the Palestinian Authority since the current uprising against Israel began four years ago.

Thousands of Palestinians staged marches in the Gaza Strip in protest at a new reform of the security services, arguing the absolute ineffectiveness of such a change and accusing the PA Chairman as the main responsible of the ongoing corruption within the Palestinian Authority.

 

A committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) was set up in early July 2004 against the background of a deteriorating rule of law and order occurred in the Territories. The PLC investigation found that the main reason for the disorder in the Palestinian territories is that “the PA and its Chairman, Yasser Arafat, have nearly completed failed to make a clear political decision to restore law and order as well as to define the most prominent roles within the Palestinian Authority, either for the long term or the short term”. The five member PLC committee, interviewing dozens of people, ranging from Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala) to leading commanders of Palestinian security forces, as well as Fatah members, have reached the conclusion that, since its inception, the PA leadership has totally failed to build up reliable state institutions, ending up using clan mechanism instead of the law to deal out-of-control armed factions.

 

 

 

III. Main actions steamed from the political chaos

 

On Friday, July 16, 2004, the Palestinian Authority declared a general state of emergency in Gaza after 4 French aid workers and 2 Palestinian officials had been kidnapped by Palestinian militant groups. The abductions were perpetrated with the aim of obtaining substantial reforms to put an end to the corruption within the Palestinian Authority.

 

Early on the 16^th of July, the Chief of Police, Major General Ghazi al-Jabali, was kidnapped by a number of gunmen at al-Borely refugee camp. During the abduction, 2 of Jabali’s bodyguards were wounded in a fire exchange involving more than 10 gunmen who attacked the police chief’s motorcade. Jabali, who has been the Gaza Strip Chief of Police for the 10 years since limited self-rule was established by the Israeli occupying forces, has been targeted several times by Palestinian militants in the past. Jabali was freed after the Palestinian Authority Chairman, Yasser Arafat, agreed to put the police chief on trial for suspected corruption. The responsibility for Jabali’s kidnapping was claimed by the Jenin Martyrs’ Brigades, who stated that it was a response to years of police failures to ensure security in Gaza.

 

Colonel Abu al-‘Ola, Commander of the Palestinian Liaison Force in Southern Gaza, was another victim of kidnapping on the 16^th of July. The abduction was perpetrated by an armed group linked with the Fatah movement, demanding the re-employment of a number of members of security services who had been sacked. Abu al-‘Ola was released in the early hours of Saturday morning, after intense negotiations with the abductors.

 

4 French aid workers, including 2 women, were also abducted, while in a restaurant in the town of Khan Younis, the same day. They were taken to the local Red Crescent building, where militants were firing from the windows to ward off police.

The Abu al-Rish Brigades, linked to the Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the abduction. In exchange for releasing the hostages, the kidnappers demanded the end of corruption within the Palestinian Authority, the implementation of political reforms, and reliable actions to house hundreds of Palestinian families whose homes had been demolished by Israeli military forces during previous military operations. After few tense hours, through the decisive mediation of Arafat, United Nations representatives, and some French diplomatic personnel, the hostages were released on grounds of promises to consider the kidnappers’ demands.

 

On the 21^st of July, a Palestinian Legislative Council member, Nabil Amr, was shot twice in the leg at his home in Ramallah. Amr said that those who attacked him were mistaken to believe that the attack would deter him from demanding reforms. He served as Information Minister in a former PA cabinet. Two years ago, gunmen fired several shots at his house after he called for reforms and criticize Arafat’s methods of governing. The attack followed a publication in which he echoed Israeli claims that Arafat missed an opportunity at the Camp David talks in 2000.

 

On the 30^th of July, some masked gunmen kidnapped 3 international aid workers coming from Ireland, United Kingdom and United States, in Nablus. They were taken to Balata refugee camp. The foreigners were released only after the police surrounded the house in which they had been held.

 

On the 1^st of August, nearly 50 gunmen, allegedly affiliated with Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, broke into a meeting attended by several members of the Palestinian Legislative Council and leaders of Fatah movements committed in dealing with issues concerning corruption and the deteriorating situation throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The gunmen opened fire to disperse the reunion, but fortunately no casualties were reported.

 

Finally, on the 2^nd of August, several unidentified gunmen started firing at the house of the Major of Nablus, Ghassan al-Shaka’a, well know for being very close to President Yasser Arafat.

 

 

 

 

IV. “Palestinian Cement” Scandal

 

 

In August, according to an inquisition carried out by Palestinian legislators, the Palestinian Authority’s general prosecutor has begun an extensive investigation into the so called “cement scandal”. It is claimed that thousands of tons, nearly 20,000, of cement, imported from Egypt for rebuilding Palestinian homes and buildings devastated by years of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) incursions and destructions, particularly in the Gaza Strip where entire areas were completely demolished, had been resold at huge profits to the Israelis for use in constructing Israel “apartheid” separation barriers and settlements throughout the West Bank territory. The cement was trucked through two border crossings between Sinai and the Gaza Strip but, instead of going to the Gaza Strip, it ended up in the Israeli town of Ashkelon.

 

The scandal has strongly contributed in straightening the Palestinian people’s convincement about the Palestinian Authority’s internal dishonesty, galvanizing them to shout the widespread indignation at the PA’s failure to tackle corruption. Indeed, this fact can be seen as the umpteenth example of corruption that, with a wide range of expressions, such as bribery, nepotism, cronyism, favoritism, kickbacks, etc, has been often representing the Palestinian Authority’s modus operandi since several years.

 

On this regard, in accordance with the investigation, a number of senior and junior PA officials might be indicted for their involvement in the affair which has already caused huge embarrassment to an increasingly under pressure Palestinian Authority and seriously undermined its credibility. The officials have been supposed to received grafts, bribes, kickback, or payments in return for their silence, even falsifying documents and facilitating the sales.

 

 

V. Arafat’s attempts to delay reform

 

On 18^th of October, Palestinian Authority cabinet minister, Jamal Shobaki, has revealed Yasser Arafat’s obstruction towards the implementation of the reform-process by rejecting to ratify laws previously approved by the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). In accordance with the Palestinian minister for local government, Arafat is still extremely reluctant to sign the so called Reform Document, approved by the PLC in May 2002 and calling for major security and financial reforms. He has additionally criticized the disappointing PA Chairman’s unwillingness to endorse any substantial reform to the judicial system and the security forces’ apparatus.

 

“We urgently need a more powerful presence of an independent judicial system. As far as the security forces are concerned, we need a new law clarifying the competences as well as the authorities of each security service. This serious problem continues to exist and nothing has been done so far. In this regard there are some obvious responsibilities related to the fact that Arafat is opposing the implementation of such a kind of measures”, the minister said.

 

 

 

VI. PA Security Services

 

 1. Abuses, torture and infringement of the law

 

While the abusive record of the Palestinian Authority may be due to in part to deficits in resources, training and experience, and to outside pressure to crack down on militant movements, these factors cannot justify or fully explain the PA’s disregard for the rule of law and intolerance of peaceful opposition and dissident. The pattern of abusive conduct displays a persistent failure of political will by the PA’s leadership to make human rights protection a priority. Even though an agreement between the PA and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been signed, authorizing the ICRC to visit all detainees and detention centers, practices of tortures and harassments are still wide-spread even in the offices of senior Palestinian security services officers, Amnesty International has reported.

 

With minimal accountability, the different police or security forces operate within and, on occasion, outside the areas under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. The different branches of the security forces appear, on many occasions, neither to coordinate nor even to communicate with each other. Moreover, the legal system has always been ignored. Political detainees are often held with no reference to any law. Orders given by the Palestinian High Court of Justice to release detainees kept in prison for months without being charged or tried continued to be regularly ignored.

 

In accordance with reports released by Amnesty International, the security forces are mainly involved in the following issues:

 

 

§         arbitrary political arrest and prolonged detention without charge or trial of  hundreds of suspected political opponents;

 

§         widespread use of torture and unlawful killings both within the detention centers and in the offices;

 

§         the failure to adequately investigate abuses and mistreatments of alleged political opponents and arrests of human rights defenders.

 

 

Below, the total number of assassinations, 24, of Palestinian people, committed by the PA security forces since the beginning of the Intifada Al-Aqsa,  has been divided in accordance with the different OPT areas. The major part of the murders (about 80%) has been perpetrated in the Gaza Strip, highlighting, once again, the appalling, worrying shortage of control and serious internal troubles within the Palestinian Authority in the Strip.

 

It is most likely primarily due to the growing number of Palestinians, residing in the Strip, that have started stopping to accept the Palestinian Authority as a representative of the Palestinian people, particularly for its ineptitude in caring about their daily life in spite of the ongoing incursions and demolitions perpetrated by Israeli forces throughout the Strip. As a direct consequence, Islamic movements, such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are progressively strengthen their grasp on the Gaza population that considers them more reliable in protecting and promoting their cause than most of the PA personnel. The last deplorable episodes, occurred in the Gaza Strip, and analyzed in the previous paragraphs, clearly demonstrate the PA’s inactivity and ineffectiveness in regulating the situation.

 

 

Assassinations perpetrated by PA Security Forces since September 2000 in the OPT (statistics gathered by the PHRMG).

 

  

2. PA security forces’ power struggle

 

According to several fresh media reports, the widely spread state of anarchy and lawlessness in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, both West Bank and Gaza Strip, is largely due to the power struggle among rival Palestinian security services and the related ineptitude of the PA Chairman, Yasser Arafat, to replace the security forces chiefs, fearing wild internal fighting.

 

“Instead of being loyal to the Palestinian Authority, the security forces are only devoted to their commanders. When one of the chief is dismissed from his job, his influence remains intact and the forces continue to be subordinated to him, even though he is not longer in charge. The situation is extremely difficult and complicated, with the risk of loosing utterly the control and heading towards a civil war”, a veteran member of the Fatah Central  Committee close to the PA’s leadership, Sakher Habash, has lately stated.

 

In addition, the Palestinian Police have recently made public that 735 murders have been carried out in the Gaza Strip and West Bank since the beginning of 2002 on the whole within the Palestinian side. Only in 2003, 113 premeditated executions, not yet solved, have been perpetrated. In accordance with some media and human rights reports, the murders would be likely due to the state of lawlessness and the huge number of firearms in the hands of individuals and groups, particularly since the start of the current Intifada Al-Aqsa.

 

 

 

VII. Silencing the freedom of expression

 

Since its establishment, the Palestinian Authority, according to Amnesty International, has been persecuting dozens of Palestinians and foreigners for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression. Human rights defenders, journalists, writers, academics, etc. have repeatedly been harassed and/or detained as prisoners of conscience outside the rule of law and some times in incommunicado because of their criticism to the PA decisional process, to the high level of corruption as well as to human rights abuses. Some have been reportedly detained after criticizing the internal policies of the PA or the conduct of the peace negotiations with the Israeli government. The PA has thus progressively restricted the right to freedom of expression through a variety of means, including arrest and detention by various security forces, in particular the Palestinian Police, the General Intelligence and the Preventive Security Service. Those put in jail are rarely shown an arrest warrant or informed of the reason for their arrest. Nevertheless the fact that they are usually arrested few hours or maximum a couple of days later their speech or articles dealing with critics about the Palestinian Authority leadership leaves no doubt regarding the reason of their imprisonment.

 

Even the Independent Committee for the Protection of Journalists, which is in charge to

monitor abuses perpetrated against the press and to promote press freedom around the world, has reported: “In the nearly seven years since the Palestinian National Authority assumed control over parts of the West Bank and Gaza, Chairman Yasser Arafat and his multi-layered security apparatus have muzzled local press critics via arbitrary arrests, threats, physical abuse, and the closure of media outlets. Over the years, the Arafat regime has managed to frighten most Palestinian journalists into self-censorship.”

 

Police and security forces, belonging to the Palestinian Authority, have indeed been reporting to operate outside the law in several occasions, arbitrarily intimidating and threatening reporters with the obvious aim of denying their freedom of speech. Persecution in PA areas has ranged over the years from forbidding access to journalists who portray the Palestinians in a less than favorable light, to personal death threats. This atmosphere of fear has led many journalists to quit their reporting job in the Occupied Territories.

 

Attacks, mistreatments and other kind of intimidation of Palestinian journalists, reporters and international media personnel, covering the main events in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), have occurred and slightly increased in the last months. It may be likely explained also as a direct consequence of the disarray broken out in the OPT, especially in the Gaza Strip, after the attempted reform of the Palestinian Authority structure proposed by President Arafat.

 

As a result of such chaos, the freedom of speech has been reportedly denied with the aim of hiding the ongoing crisis and the high level of corruption of some of the Palestinian Authority’s bodies. This sort of repression and restriction imposed to mass media, denying people to report the truth, is firmly regrettable. On this respect, safety for Palestinian and international journalists has been sadly tenuous during the past year; lawlessness has grown and armed groups, some of them straightly belonging to the Palestinian Authority forces, have assaulted and physically beaten several reporters.

 

Normally, it is not for governments and/or political authorities to decide what journalists, reporters as well anyone else working with the aim of revealing the truth should or should not write or say; nor should governments have the right to decide whether that writing or way of thinking is biased. Such mutters have to be the sole concern of the journalists and their media institutes.

 

Because of their slowness and passivity, the Palestinian security services bear a heavy responsibility for those repeated attacks on news media and journalists. Moreover, until

now, no investigation has produced results and no one has been brought to trial, making these abuses almost completely unpunished.

 

On 22nd of April, 2004, in accordance with a number of reports published by the International Federation of Journalists, Jamal Aruri, 38 years old, photographer associated with “Agence France Press”, has been brutally assaulted and physically harassed in Ramallah by three masked men allegedly belonging to the PA security personnel. The attack was considered as a sort of retaliation executed after that a picture of the three men, taken by Jamal in 2003, was recently republished. The men have been wanted by Israeli authorities for several years due to their suspected activity of conspiracy against Israeli institutions.

 

On 19^th of July, 2004, several Palestinian journalists have been seriously threatened to stay away from the rallies organized in Gaza City and anywhere else in the Strip against the Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat’s decision to appoint his cousin, Moussa Arafat, as overall commander of PA security forces. In particular, journalists working for the Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera and the Dubai-based satellite channel Al-Arabiya have reportedly received awful telephone threats from men identifying themselves as Palestinian Authority security personnel. Saifeddin Shahin, Gaza correspondent for Al-Arabiyya, declared that a man, claiming to belong to the PA security services, threatened to burn the station’s bureau if the station was not careful about its reports dealing with the new PA appointments.

 

Furthermore, on this regard, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate in the Gaza Strip has worryingly warned its members against reporting on the intra-Palestinian fighting, called on them to focus instead on demonstrations that consolidate national unity.

 

“The Palestinian Authority is putting a lot of pressure on the journalists to refrain from covering the anti-corruption protests. Palestinian militants and forces are gravely putting at risk the freedom of expression and independent reporting” a spokesman from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said, commenting the latest events.

 

Again, on 9^th of August, 2004, several masked armed Palestinian militants threatened some Arab journalists because of their constant involvement in reporting on the Palestinian Authority’s internal matters. Leaflets distributing by members of the Palestinian Resistance Groups, a coalition of various militant factions operating in the Gaza Strip, accused the reporters of ignoring the repeated IDF incursions, mainly in the Rafah refugee camp, instead highlighting the PA internal power struggle. “We issue a warning to all the Arab satellite stations that are reporting on the internal fighting; we really hope that we will not be forced to deal with them in a harsh manner”, the leaflet said. Even in this circumstance the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate has warned its members against covering PA internal struggles, promising exemplar punishments to anyone who would violate the order.

 

 

 

VIII. Palestinian Civil Society: reactions & demands

 

For the major part of the Palestinian people the demands of reform are not only related to the Palestinian Authority’s financial corruption, cronyism and nepotism. They primarily reflect the huge gap existing between the youngest generations and the so called “Oslo or eldest generation” consisting of the current PLO, PA and al-Fatah personnel. At the eyes of Palestinian people many of these figures have gained the reputation of being cohorts in a corrupt Palestinian Authority’s coalition. Some are also perceived as extremely power-centric persons always willing to accomplish their own ambitions, their personal goals and objectives by adhering to the well known and so called “warlord mentality”. They are willing to provide any effort for preserving their prominent positions, and favoring preventive removal of any possible political opponents. Others are eventually labeled “collaborators” with the Israeli authorities, loosing their major influence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

 

In a such volatile and easily breakable scenario, a quickly growing number of Palestinians, especially from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, due to the relevant lacks constantly showed by the current PA leadership, have begun to think about the Islamic group of Hamas as one of the most viable shadow government supplementing the needs of the people in the Palestinian community, exactly where Mr. Arafat and the whole PA have failed. The absence of a strong PA leadership has seriously strengthened the influence of Hamas and other Islamic factions.

 

Recent polls indicate that Hamas can presently count of the support of nearly 20-25% of the Palestinian population, with remarkable peaks particularly in the Gaza Strip. Without any doubt, the figure represents the most significant support of any group among the wide range of Palestinian factions residing in the Occupied Territories, also seen as free of corruption. A number of Palestinians views indeed Hamas as a charitable organization mostly focused on making wide financial contributions for public infrastructure, schools, hospitals in addition to providing economic relief for Palestinians in need. They appreciate Hamas’ commitment in lavishing its energies and resources primarily towards providing services to the community, especially responding to its immediate hardships and concerns due to the occupation. Moreover, the Hamas’ resistance to Israeli settlement in the OPT and to the Israeli occupation policy on the whole, its fight against the administrative detention (arrest without trial) of Palestinians and their brutal daily treatment in jail as well as its struggle for th